A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains or may contain material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the photocopy reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure in exactly the form it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present invention relates in general to a gaming device, and more particularly to a gaming device having player selectable selections and at least one associated award database, wherein one or more awards of the database generate another award.
Known games of gaming devices provide a player with one or more opportunities to select masked bonus awards from a pattern or group of masked awards displayed to the player. When the player selects a masked award, the player receives the value of the award, and the game enables the player to select another masked award. The player selects another masked award and the process continues until the player selects a masked terminator. European Patent Application No. EP 0 945 837 A2 filed on Mar. 18, 1999 and assigned on its face to WMS Gaming, Inc. discloses a bonus scheme of this type.
That application discloses the possible outcome of a player""s selection being either an award or a bonus terminator. Players desire variety in a gaming event. One way to provide variety is to vary the type of outcome that a player can receive. It is therefore desirable to provide a game that varies the possible outcomes of a gaming event beyond a win outcome or a lose outcome.
The present invention provides a gaming device and specifically a bonus round of a gaming device which includes one or more selections or selectable choices. The processor of the game accesses an award database and generates an award for each chosen selection. Certain awards in the database include a value or pecuniary gain outcome such as a gaming device credit or a game multiplier. One or more awards in the database are supplementing awards which include a pecuniary gain outcome and an additional award generation outcome. The supplementing awards may be associated with one or more of the selections or selectable choices.
Upon the receipt of a supplementing award, the present invention generates another award. The generated award can, in turn, be a regular award such as gaming device credit or a game multiplier, or another supplementing award. The game continues in this manner until a player does not generate a supplementing award. The game can alternatively have a set limit on the number of sequential supplementing awards allowed. For instance, the game can include only one supplementing award in a database and only enable the awards to be randomly generated a single time.
The present invention includes a game having a plurality of the above described award databases, wherein each particular database is associated with one or more player selectable selections. The present invention includes known input devices, such as one or more electro-mechanical pushbuttons or a touch screen display device. The present invention preferably includes a display device that can provide audio-visual sequences as the game enables the player to input choices, while the game generates an award and while the game provides the player with the award.
It is therefore an advantage of the present invention to provide a gaming device having at least one player selectable selection and at least one associated award database, wherein one or more awards in the database generates another award.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed disclosure, taken in conjunction with the accompanying sheets of drawings, wherein like numerals refer to like parts, elements, components, steps and processes.